The Wakanheza Project

Devereux Florida - The Wakanheza Project

Creating Welcoming Environments for Children, Youth, and Families

Wakanheza (Sacred Being) is the Dakota word for child. As a community, we need to lend a hand to help parents with the toughest job they will ever love parenting and to protect our children, these sacred beings.

Wakahneza Project

Based on six principals, this customized training is a community-based initiative focused on reducing tension and stressful situations for families. The overall concept is to teach people when and how to reach out and help without judgment or scorn - when witnessing a parent struggling with a child in public. Public places, stressed out parents and unruly or tired children can quickly bring on a parent-child meltdown. The Wakanheza Project provides simple strategies to defuse these potentially explosive or abusive situations. The Wakanheza project focuses on prevention by involving individuals and the community.

This training can be one to four hours and includes discussions on parenting and discipline, exercises about children’s behavior in public and tips and suggestions for intervening. Our hope is to raise awareness and encourage community residents to help in restoring safety for children in their neighborhoods by supporting parents and becoming more watchful of children in potentially vulnerable situations.

The six principles of Wakanheza are based on researched practices that have been tried and tested -- and work. The Wakanheza Project gives you tools that work for you in any environment to reduce tension and barriers that lead to harsh or even abusive words or actions. Wakanheza works anywhere. It has been brought to libraries, museums, schools, health clinics, faith communities, government agencies and more.

Devereux Kids is collaborating with Prevent Child Abuse Minnesota and Ramsey County to bring The Wakanheza Project to Florida. Devereux Kids serves as the lead agency implementing the Project in Florida, working in partnership with PCAMN to facilitate the training and provide follow-up and evaluation results. For information on scheduling a training in your community or for your organization, please contact Kimberly Miller at 813-915-7101 or email kmiller4@devereux.org.